In a large number of sporting activities, such as tennis, hand ball, squash, racket ball, basketball, soccer, football, hockey, and other sporting activities in which there is fast movement of players and the use of a ball or other physical contact, there exists a continuing danger of a participant being struck in the eye by the ball, equipment or hand of an opponent. This can result in severe injury or even, in some cases, loss of an eye.
Thus, a variety of different types of protective eyewear has been developed for each of the variety of sporting activities. Generally, the protective eyewear are formed as either eyeglasses or goggles. Many of these prior protective eyeglasses suffer from one or more deficiencies. For example, some protective eyewear are very uncomfortable to wear since they are made of a very hard rigid plastic. Other protective eyewear is heavy and cumbersome to wear, which causes the wearer substantial discomfort during participation in the sporting event.
Accordingly, most protective eyewear is now constructed of lightweight, hard, rigid plastic with pads fixedly coupled thereto. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,688,272 to Leonardi discloses sports frames constructed of a lightweight plastic with a pair of temple pads and a nose pad fixedly coupled thereto. However, the sports frames disclosed by the Leonardi patent and many other prior eyeglasses do not provide easily removable pads which can be replaced when they wear out, or which can be changed with other pads of a different color to provide a different fashionable look.
Moreover, many prior eyeglasses do not provide sufficient pad to cover substantially all areas of the frame which are exposed to the wearer. Accordingly, the wearer of such eyeglasses is quite often cut by the frames, when the frames are struck by an object. Some eyeglasses have been manufactured with additional pads or padding in an attempt to overcome this problem. However, these eyeglasses present other problems or disadvantages. Namely, the padding often interferes with the installation of the lenses into the frame of the eyeglasses, since the optician cannot heat the frame without damaging the padding. Also, if the padding is molded onto the frame of the eyeglasses, then both the padding and frames are lost if either part is flawed and rejected.
Other examples of various prior devices relating to protective eyewear are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,288,140 to Nixson; 1,344,474 to Beattey; 1,754,694 to Neuwirth; 2,406,608 to Joyce; 2,504,524 to Hayward; 2,545,428 to Liautaud; 2,755,803 to Dorsey; 3,584,939 to Olson et al; 3,993,403 to Brown; 4,176,410 to Matthias; 4,222,640 to Bononi; 4,229,837 to Solari; 4,367,561 to Solari; 5,016,293 to Lickle; 5,033,837 to Leonardi; 5,046,198 to Hunnebeck; 5,137,342 to Jannard et al; 5,138,723 to Bolle and 5,184,354 to Alfaro et al.
In view of the above, it is apparent that there exists a need for protective eyewear which is comfortable to wear and can be used in almost any sporting activity. This invention addresses these needs in the art, along with other needs which will become apparent to those skilled in the art once given this disclosure.